Dinosaurs Must Die

As promised, here is my opinion of the 'if you don't want to get skullfvcked by Revit - you are just like the people who didn't want to switch from the drawing board to CAD drafting' argument.

There was a pretty good reason that people were hesitant to switch from the tried and true method of hand drafting: computers were still in their infancy at the time.

They were expensive, slow, and had specs that were almost comically low (by todays standards).

To entrust a set of construction documents to a machine that could barely handle word processing tasks without crashing or filling up its tiny little memory was unthinkable.

I had hand-drafting classes in high-school, but only as an introduction to CAD drafting (ACAD Release 6 - running in DOS).  For anyone who has never had the experience of drafting by hand, it would seem slow and laborious - which is true in some cases, but they fail to take into account many of the simple tricks a hand-drafter (especially one with a photocopier) had at their disposal.

A clever draftsman could use stamps or trace templates rather than having to draw everything from scratch.  By drawing on trace-paper with the building plan as an underlay (the original 'XREF') they could keep track of changes, and prevent the need for constant erasing.

There was also the advantage that if the Architect was drawing by hand, they would be less likely to implement unnecessary changes due to the time it would take (and might be more inclined to request additional fee (for themselves and other disciplines) when the owner started off on flights of fantasy when the project was nearing completion.

Obviously I'm not calling for a return to paper and pencil, which had its own drawbacks and limitations as well - but there are many misconceptions when it comes to the reasons for the resistance to change.

Primarily - the knowledge that at any point in the project, that you do not have to worry about having to fight a mindless piece of software to get whatever it is that engineers, project managers, architects, other disciplines, developers, clients, etc. want to have so they can submit it for review by codes officials, permits, pricing, and ultimately for bidding, construction, and future needs.

It's not uncommon in the industry for a schedule to suddenly be cut in half, or for the owner to have been given unrealistic expectations by someone involved with the project.

In a perfect world, reasonable schedules (and fees) would take into account the intricacies of a given project, and take into account other simultaneous projects (including those that have already been issued but which the owner refuses to stop changing).

Instead: reality.

Obviously Revit isn't to blame for other people's bad planning becoming my emergency - but I have to know that I have tools at my disposal for the times these situations arise.

One final word - 'The Revit Kid (molester)' says something along the lines of 'you will either use Revit or you will not have a job'.

Besides ignoring the fact that Revit isn't the only (or the best) BIM software available (that honor going to Bentley systems - if for no other reason than that they chose to interface with 'Visual' for lighting design/photometrics), it reminds me of how glad I am that design work just happened to be something I stumbled across (being more or less self-taught in ACAD, and now in Revit - for the few things I concede to do in it), and that my resume and skill set are extensive.